Vero4k+ network speed much to low [solved]

I have tested the network speed at work, still not 1GBit and a lot retrys

Connecting to host 192.168.0.50, port 5201
[  4] local 192.168.0.215 port 60496 connected to 192.168.0.50 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth       Retr  Cwnd
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec   795 MBytes   667 Mbits/sec  127             sender
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec   795 MBytes   667 Mbits/sec                  receiver

-----------------------------------------------------------
Server listening on 5201
-----------------------------------------------------------
Accepted connection from 192.168.0.50, port 49517
[  5] local 192.168.0.215 port 5201 connected to 192.168.0.50 port 49518
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth
[  5]   0.00-10.19  sec  0.00 Bytes  0.00 bits/sec                  sender
[  5]   0.00-10.19  sec   679 MBytes   559 Mbits/sec                  receiver

back at home i connected only the windows server and the vero to an old Fritzbox 7390 and finaly got the advertised speed. Now i have to debug my network setup.
As it is not a hardware or software problem i have marked the thread as solved. I will ignore the

Cannot get wake-on-lan settings: Operation not permitted

ethtool messeage for now. Thank you all for your help.

Connecting to host 192.168.178.22, port 5201
[  4] local 192.168.178.20 port 34017 connected to 192.168.178.22 port 5201
[  4]   0.00-10.01  sec  1.09 GBytes   937 Mbits/sec    0             sender
[  4]   0.00-10.01  sec  1.09 GBytes   936 Mbits/sec                  receiver

-----------------------------------------------------------
Server listening on 5201
-----------------------------------------------------------
Accepted connection from 192.168.178.22, port 1430
[  5] local 192.168.178.20 port 5201 connected to 192.168.178.22 port 1431
[  5]   0.00-10.18  sec  0.00 Bytes  0.00 bits/sec                  sender
[  5]   0.00-10.18  sec  1.09 GBytes   916 Mbits/sec                  receiver

Hi @martini2

Thanks for your patience.

Iā€™ll give a more detailed update shortly, but can you try this new kernel which also has some Ethernet improvements: [TESTING] Vero 4K / 4K + video improvements

Unplug your device from the mains for 10 seconds and then turn it on again.

I tore the kernel apart yesterday, but I donā€™t think there is an OSMC related issue.

Sam

Over the last few days I did some testing on three different switches and was not able to reproduce the very slow speeds you were seeing, which are definitely not normal. To a windows PC I was consistently getting about 930Mbps in both directions.

One thing I did realise during my testing is that some retries reported by iperf during a send test can be normal depending on the speed of the recipient and any bottlenecks in between.

For example when I send to a Gigabit ethernet PC I get zero retries, however if I send to a Vero1 - which has Gigabit but can only achieve about 600Mbps throughput maximum - slower than the Vero4k+, then I achieve around 600Mbps but do see a small number of retries reported, which are a result of the slower device having to drop some packets.

Likewise if I try to send to a 100Mbit device such as an original Vero4k this introduces a bottleneck, and the switch itself must drop some packets when packets are coming in faster than 100Mbps and its internal buffer queue is full.

TCP will detect this packet loss and throttle back the data rate and reduce window size automatically - this shows as some retries and a reduced cwnd in iperf3.

So any time the sending device wishes to send faster than either the recipient or the intervening network can handle, a small amount of TCP retries are a normal part of the TCP throttling mechanism, so not necessarily a sign of trouble, as long as the speed achieved is relatively stable and near the capability of the slowest link in the chain.

If you figure out what is causing the issue with your network configuration then please let us know.

thank you for testing. I have reflashed the vero but the network was still to slow.
After trying many combinations of switches, ports and cables i found the problem and confirmed it at work and at my neighbours. Itā€™s the vero. No other device behaves like it on the same port with the same cable. Even when only the vero and another pc is connected to a switch it can not send full speed. Reciving is mostly ~1Gbit but sometimes varying betwenn 0 and ~1Gbit. No other device is sending retrys. Not the 1Gbit or the 100MBit devices. After recabling my network and connecting the vero and the server with a dedicated cable to my router i get ~1Gbit in both directions. Browsing shares is fast and playing uhd rips works great and i hope it stays that way.
I am not happy with the cabling even when everthing still runs at full speed. But the vero problem is solved for now.

@sam_nazarko: I tested the kernel you linked above before and after reflashing the vero. It had no effect on the network speed but the HDR switching works now without the ā€œautoā€ setting. I have no problems with blacklevels on my LG TV so can not comment on this. (Tested with a UHD rip of Arrival, which is quite dark)

Can you send me a link to the switch you have? I will try and put it here and see if I can reproduce the problem

Sam

I have two of these D-Link DGSā€‘1008D.
Today i bought a cheap manged D-Link DGS-1100-08 switch and will try to run the tests @DBMandrake suggested over the weekend.
As i have a working solution i will do the tests out of curiosity. Please do not waste too much time on this.

Iā€™ll purchase these switches to see if I can reproduce the issue.
So far you are the only user to report these speed issues; but I would like to work out why.

Sam

Iā€™m using multiples of these switches around my house without issue, as a data point:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C2H0YFU/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

No need to spend money on this. As i bought a new managed switch i can send you the D-Link DGSā€‘1008D (these old models are probably not available anymore). I donā€™t need it anymore. Just send me a pm where to send it to.
I also tested the vero with the new switch. Sadly with the same results. Speed is very slow in both directions. I tried manual setting 1000Mbit Full duplex, flow controll on / off, QoS highest / medium, etc. There were no TX or RX errors. I tested all cables (walls/devices), they are all OK. The strangest part is when i remove the cables from the switch and plug them in my fritzbox 7490 i get ~1Gbit in both directions.
Btw. As @rusakko reported a smiliar problem i set eth0 of the vero4k+ to 100Mbit full duplex and had allways full speed sending and reciving. There were no retrys like with 1000Mbit.

Hi @martini2

I sent you an email and would love to get hold of the problematic switch as it will benefit other users.

Sam

@sam_nazarko I will send it tomorrow and mail you the tracking number.

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Much obliged.

I was having exactly the same problem: 40-50 mbps rips/remuxes were not
playing correctly. Tested both ethernet and wifi interfaces. I blamed the hardware.

But then a friend suggested I try Emby server + Kodi plugin. And suddenly itā€™s much better: it never runs out of buffer. The only problem is - when you skip +10min or more, and donā€™t give Kodi time to re-sync, Kodi stops playing. Still, great improvement over regular SMB playback.

Which makes me think the problem isnā€™t the hardware, but some Vero-specific SMB glitch.

Hardware - Vero 4k (1st edition), a generic tp-link hub.

Hard to say without logs. You could try the mitigate SMB issues option under Settings -> Services.

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Dunno if this helps but my son had issues playing FHD remuxā€™s off my old Synology NAS. Either would not play at all or played but bombed out if he hit skip fwd etc. Slower bitrate stuff played fine.

The download speed from the NAS connected to my laptop via a Netgear swiitch was >80MBps so that wasnā€™t the issue.

Anyways, cutting a long story short, it was SMB causing the problems. Switched to NFS and all good.

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@sam_nazarko thanks for the tip. I switched to min protocol level=SMBv3 and itā€™s suddenly much better. But the Matrix (remux) still has problems at ~70Mbps:

https://streamable.com/aq46oc

@sarit.shah thanks, Iā€™ll try NFS as well.

Well how are you connected? For 100Mbit this would be at the edge of the Kodi SMB implementation. For those edge cases we always suggest moving to Kernel Based SMB mounts (fstab or autofs).

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Indeed Iā€™m on 100 mbit (older Vero-4k device). Thanks for the advice, Iā€™ll look into it.

Tried NFS - itā€™s about as fast as SMBv3, still has problems at high bitrate. But I should probably think about upgrading the bottleneck - 100 mbit Ethernet port.

System level mounts should be your next step. These are more times than not more performant.

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